7 Flowers To Encourage Birds Into Your Garden

This time of year sees us delving into seed catalogues and searching online trying to decide the variety of flowers we will be planting in our gardens. As the list of potentials gets longer, keep in mind our feathered friends. We can not only have our wonderful blooms but also provide sustenance for our garden birds. The birds will repay you tenfold by foraging for slugs, snails, caterpillars, aphids and all kinds of garden pests.

It is good to have a mix of flowers that will spread the food store over the year. Try to include early flowers to attract the fleshy kind of garden pest, flowers that will develop seeds as food and those that will encourage insects and bees. Try to allow part of your garden to be a little untidy and in late autumn leave some of the finished plants in the ground as cover for insects.

Listed below are some of the many flowers you can grow in the garden or container that will benefit our birds. There is an abundance of other suitable species such as aster, cornflower, rudbeckia, honesty and foxgloves.

Alyssum

The low growing plants become smothered in tiny, pure white flowers all summer long. Alyssum attracts aphids which are a good high protein food for birds.

Nicotiana

Nicotiana is commonly known as the “tobacco plant”. With beautiful flowers and fragrance, they make an excellent cut flower for the home. Leave the dead plants in situ throughout winter and early spring to provide shelter for insects.

Sunflowers

Sunflowers are so easy and fun to grow and also make great cut flowers. There are over 80 varieties to choose from; dwarf to the gigantic Russian Giant. Leave the flowers to develop their seeds and watch the nuthatches and tits take advantage.

Teasel

Teasel plants make fine architectural statements in the garden. The pinky-purple or white flowers, a valuable source of nectar, dry to a lovely shade of brown and make stunning prickly seed heads, a particular favourite of goldfinches, chaffinches, buntings and sparrows to name but a few.

Candytuft

Candytuft is a popular flower for children to grow along with nasturtiums and marigolds. Apart from being very attractive to butterflies and bees they are also a magnet for slugs and snails, a welcome addition to the diet of a number of birds

Zinnia

Zinnias are easy to grow, have brightly coloured blooms and are long lasting in a vase. They produce hundreds of seeds and are a much loved food of goldfinches and sparrows.

Primrose

The common primrose is one of Britain’s favourite plants. With their delicate yellow flowers, they are our harbingers of spring, the first sighting so welcome in our gardens. They attract caterpillars which are the staple diet of blue tit chicks so if you have any blue tit nest boxes in your garden, why not plant some primroses beneath.

The Royal society for the protection of birds (RSPB) have been asking the public to register for this year’s Big Garden Bird Watch and report back with the approximate number and variety of birds they see in their garden.

Why not take part in this worthwhile project. Take a look at our range of bird tables, baths and foods in our online store, we are just a click away, and have just about everything to bring birds to your garden, time after time, all year round.

Published January 21st, 2015 by Jordan. Article ref 3495

« Garden Pond Winter Care & Maintenance | Seven Of The Most Popular Gardens To Visit In Britain »